Well, I'm glad to see I am not the only Elvis fan who likes it!
It is the only album I ever liked most of the songs the first time I
listened to it. Even with artists I like the best, it often takes me 4-5
times to like any given song, and to "learn" a whole album can take many
listens. The melodies on this album just "made sense" to me somehow, so
that I could follow along with them, as well as the lyrics to some
extent (I guess you never understand all of Elvis's lyrics), the first
time I listened to the CD. And the arrangements go well with what he
wrote, and every song is distinctively different.
As much as I love his earliest albums, and others throughout his career,
this is the best--and better than anything by anyone else, to boot.
"Andrew T. Kay" <lastredleaffalls@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
news:1160198585.819787.138910@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Arnold Gallagher wrote:
>> lazuli777@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote in news:15823-45259C65-1697@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> 3236.bay.webtv.net:
>>
>> > I agree just About Glad is a masterpiece-I think I've made more pro
>> > Elvis comments than negative ones in the totality of my posts. As
>> > far as masterpieces- I don't think Elvis has made a full fledged
>> > masterpice since IB.
>>
>> BZZZZZ wrong answer!
>>
>> All This Useless Beauty, the greatest musical performance ever by
>> anyone. Even though I apologized and corrected myself and now
>> recognize IB as a great masterpiece rather than the boring album I
>> once called it.
>
> At the distance of ten years, I don't know how ATUB's excellence got
> past me when it was released in 1996. Not that I ever thought it was
> *bad* -- I remember liking it well enough, but just not thinking it
> was "top-tier"; that it was strong in spots but lacked cohesion, or
> something. I put it aside for a while and only listened once in a
> while to isolated tracks. Today it hits me as really potent,
> consistent, something that holds together as well as anything he's
> done. "Complicated Shadows," "It's Time," and "You Bowed Down" are
> electrifying; "Distorted Angel" is marvelously twisted and insinuating
> and warped; "Little Atoms" and "Starting To Come To Me" are
> tours-de-force of clever Costellian verbal gamesman****p with insanely
> catchy music to go with them; and "Poor Fractured Atlas," "Telescope,"
> and "I Want To Vanish" are just beautiful songs (although -- heresy
> coming -- I think only "Atlas" gets the definitive performance it
> deserves; his strained, hung-over vocal masks the full beauty of
> "Telescope," and I prefer June Tabor's original "I Want To Vanish" to
> the author's "cover" here).
>
> As mentioned earlier in the thread, I find "Why Can't A Man Stand
> Alone?" tedious, and "Shallow Grave" is just middling as the Mc & Mac
> collaborations go, but two questionable songs (and neither of *those*
> a disgrace) out of twelve isn't bad at all.
>
> Todd K
>
>
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